Broccoli is doing very well. Strawberries are slowly moving along, as are the tomatoes. Peppers and eggplant are in suspended animation since I planted them. Okra is doing fairly well but it's inside a polytunnel. On a sunny day, surface soil temps inside easily hit 45 C, but the okra just loves it!

Peppers are budding, Ox heart set 6 tomatoes, Cherry has about 6 marble size tomatoes, Cucs- will be picking some little cucs maybe next week.Watermelons starting to vine. Grapes have baby pea size grapes. Its nice to have a gh

drhorticulture - does broccoli do well here? I grew it when we lived on Vancouver Island, but not here. There it got green worms that I picked off with a butter knife and then squished. I don't know if I have the stomach to do that anymore. Do they get many of the green worms here?

sprayman- it must be so nice to have a greenhouse. Does that result in higher yields, and for longer, or does your season just end sooner? I'm assuming you never have to cover tomatoes in the fall. =:)

My neighbour just brought me some leeks to plant. Anybody have any advice?

"Does that result in higher yields, and for longer, or does your season just end sooner? I'm assuming you never have to cover tomatoes in the fall."

I think so , My Cherry tomato yields close to 40Lbs of tomatoes. The warmer nights help to set more fruit on the Ox heart. Last year I was picking tomatoes into Nov. My peppers turn from green to yellow or red & have nice thick walls.
The only thing that ends early is the watermelons & that's in mid Sept. Plus they fully ripen which is hard to do outside unless we get a long hot summer.
The rest seem to go into a second growth

My first iris opened yesterday, but I don't think it's quite right . . . I think the frost caused a problem for the bud, because the petals and falls are all twisted. Of course, I just moved to this house and inherited these irises, so maybe that's what they always look like, but I doubt it. I've already killed all six broccoli that I raised from seed, by leaving them uncovered for the hard frosts, and damaged the 4 that I bought to replace them by forgetting to water them for a few too many days when my brand new sprinkler broke. Sigh. We might still get broccoli this year . . .

On the bright side, the orchard is looking nice. All the little trees that I planted about a month ago are looking happy, with either buds or flowers on all the apples except two (well, three including the one that I killed with too-fresh manure, despite innumerable warnings), buds on the evans cherry, and saskatoons that look like they are planning to set fruit, even though they're only 2.5 ft tall. The bleeding heart is finally getting sizable buds, it took so long that nobody (including me) believed that it WAS a bleeding heart. Most of the veggies are happy too, the peas were completely unperturbed by the multiple frosts since I planted them on May 4, and all the corn and beans that were up seem to have survived with covers. Some of the corn even survived with no covers, it's a good thing it was only 1 inch tall!

Three days ago I was pretty depressed, but now I'm ready to forgive and forget . . . as long as that's the last frost until fall :) It's nice to hear from other gardeners going through the same things I am, I think I like this forum! It makes me feel better, and I pass on the feeling to a friend who just moved from Vancouver to Saskatoon . . . this is her first spring there, and she's trying to start a new garden, in this crazy spring. Thanks for the support, everyone!

Hykue

Did your friend move from B.C. to Saskatchewan of her/his own free will? I sure hope you have lots of tips for Sask. gardening, because it's much different, as you can well imagine. There's lots of beautiful things that grow there that sure won't here =:(

Maybe she'll join this forum ......

Hey nutsaboutflowers,
Unfortunately I can't tell you because this is the first time growing broccoli and my second year gardening in SK. Prior to that, I was in Zone 10 (not as great as it sounds because summers were way too hot). Still, it was quite a shock, and this unusual spring this year is making things even more difficult. I bet it was more like an average spring in the Yukon...

My friend moved because her husband's job took him to Saskatoon. She didn't have a garden in Vancouver, because she didn't have a yard, so she's happy to get to garden at all. The last time she had a garden was in northern Alberta, so it's not as much of a shock as it could be, anyway!

Also, I think broccoli does do well here. I haven't grown it here either, but it seems to be available at all the nurseries, and I remember people growing it where I grew up (in the same zone). I think it does get many of those green worms, though, if I remember correctly. Sorry about the bad news . . . but I could be wrong!